


The Archivist of the Ruined World

by ratatat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ceaseless Watcher kill this clown, Character Study, Jonah Magnus got what he wanted (not really), MAG 192 Spoilers, POV Third Person Omniscient, This is literally just based off of episode 192
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29073402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratatat/pseuds/ratatat
Summary: His name is Jonah Magnus.A brief look into the life of Jonah Magnus, his fears, and his new life.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	The Archivist of the Ruined World

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! MAG 192 sure was... an episode. Really excited for the symbolism and foreshadowing and all that fun stuff and really excited to see next week's episode and I wrote this as a way to talk about some theories I have about the whole thing. 
> 
> Also I have a tumblr now! I haven't been on in like 2 weeks lmao but you can follow me @bread-loving-lad on there. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! As always, I don't think there are any content warnings that apply to this, but in case I missed one feel free to shoot me a message or leave a comment and I'll add it as soon as possible.

His name is Jonah Magnus. It is 1818, and his Institute has opened its doors. He grins as he takes a seat at his desk. He has long ago left behind fear of any kind, except for the fear he serves. He revels in it, breathes it, lives it. Jonah Magnus is a vessel for it, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

He wants to be king. Not _a_ king, but _the_ . The king of a ruined world, king of the ashes of old. The ruler of a brand new Earth, built on misery on pain and suffering. He imagines it, what it would feel like to feel the fear of everyone at once, to absorb their terror into his own soul. He wants it so bad he can almost taste it. It is, in its own way, oddly simplistic. Love and hope and happiness are much more difficult to achieve than fear. It is a simple emotion. It can be detrimental, yes, and all encompassing and more powerful than the human mind can comprehend. But it is much easier to have a world built on fear when there are so many who already experience and know it. Jonah Magnus, for all his knowledge, does not know this. He Knows it, can feel the stricken horror of a child as he falls from the high branch of a tree and the subsequent break of an arm or leg, can listen to the coughing of blood into handkerchiefs and the dread that follows, can see the blood drain from the faces of unlucky men as they gaze at the storm on the horizon from their ships. He Knows, but does not _know_. Do you see the difference, now? 

His name is Jonah Magnus, and he Knows everything, and still he does not know anything. He pledges his allegiance to me, so sure of himself, so sure of the world he will create, that he still cannot see what I do, cannot see his own undoing. But I suspect that even someone not of my nature could see what will happen to the king of the ruined world. 

* * *

His name is now James Wright. It is 1995, and he walks around his Institute observing his employees. He could do it from his desk, but he wants to see them all in person. He studies the back of Brian Burdock and makes a note of how it creaks. Not him, then. His attention turns to Julia Sullivan, but realizes all too quickly that she has a history of heart disease on her mother’s side. He enters the library, making note of everyone working at the front desk. None of them will fit him either. They’re all too tall or too short or will be dead in less than ten years. He grunts in surprise as he feels someone walk into him from behind.   
  


“Sorry, Mr. Wright,” Elias Bouchard says, his face turning red in embarrassment. His eyes, James can see, are red rimmed, his limbs loose and relaxed. James doesn’t need to See to know where Elias has been on his lunch break.

“It’s quite alright, Elias,” he smiles. His name is James Wright, but soon he will take the name of Elias Bouchard, will take his eyes and his soul and everything left of the man. Elias will be a fine vessel. He is young and healthy and his pesky smoking habit will be easy to break. It might surprise people when he gets a sudden promotion, but who is going to raise a fuss? Gertrude might, with all her nosy inquiries, but James can deal with her soon enough. As much as he loathes her, her work is necessary for his ultimate goal. He can get rid of her when she is no longer useful. 

James wonders idly about what will happen to Gertrude when he gets his new world. Maybe he’ll create a special hell just for her. An endless Archive, perhaps, filled with statement after statement, but no end. What, he thinks, is Gertrude afraid of? He Knows she’s afraid of him, even if she would never admit it, but he can’t be expected to torture her for all of eternity. For all his evil, he isn’t Satan. There has to be something that can horrify her, something that will make her heart race and her palms sweat and her head to fill with nothing but dread and the wish for everything to end. She keeps her thoughts closely guarded, he knows, but there is nothing that James does not Know. He’ll figure something out eventually, he tells himself as he starts to plan how exactly to lure Elias down into the Panopticon. 

* * *

His name is Elias Bouchard, and has been for almost 20 years now. It is 2015, and he has appointed Jonathan Sims to be his new Head Archivist. Elias is excited for the first time in what feels like years. He has never met someone so afraid of disappointing people before, yet somehow so rude and keen to push people away. Jon is afraid that he has no idea what he’s doing, all while oblivious to the fact that Elias hired him for exactly that reason. His fear is _delicious_ , and Elias delights in feeding on it every day. 

Jon will be the final archivist, he Knows. Elias is so close to getting his kingdom. He has Gertrude’s notes and centuries worth of information stored in his mind and, of course, the Knowledge his patron so greatly gives him. He has it all, and all he needs now is Jon to be the final vessel. 

And so Elias Watches. He Watches from his desk, taking great amusement in the final scream of Sasha James. He chuckles to himself as Jon blindly makes his way through the tunnels, sips tea while Martin confesses to making up his CV. Melanie is a bit of an outlier, but he drinks in her fear all the same even as she plots over and over how to kill him in her head. She won’t kill him, he Knows, but that doesn’t stop her from being a small nuisance. 

Elias takes great pride as Jon earns his marks. It is quite funny to Elias how desperate Jon is to make the world better. He is so sure that he’s doing the right thing, that if he says these words and does these actions that it will actually change anything. Jon has no choice, in the end, but he doesn’t know that yet. He still has a small hope that he can change whatever is coming. Elias grins to himself as he feels Jon’s heart race when he grips Jude Perry’s hand. For all his knowledge, he doesn’t know. 

* * *

Sometime later, Jon opens the door. 

* * *

He has no name. He has no time. He is Jonah Magnus, James Wright, and Elias Bouchard all at once, and at the same time he is not any of those men. He is everything and nothing, nothing and everything.

He is a Vessel, he is a king, and he wishes more than anything he could change it. He knows now, but no longer Knows. He knows fear unlike he’s ever known it before. He can feel it thrumming through his veins, but he no longer possesses it. It doesn’t feed him, it tortures him. It makes his heart race and his palms sweat and and his head is filled with nothing but dread and the wish for everything to end. He can’t Know anything, but he knows everything. Do you see the difference, now?

If you could see him, you would understand. You would notice how his throat aches from his statements, how his eyes fill with tears that never fall from his face, how his hands tremble at his sides. He is not the king of his ruined world so much as he _is_ the ruined world. The same way you cannot see the world in its entirety, you cannot see the man who has created it. He is nothing more than a vessel, now. 

  
The Archivist was right, of course, about Jon being the last archivist. But what he did not know, in fact, _could_ not know, was that he would be the first.


End file.
